Gotham Loses a Hero and Brings Back a Villain

Michael Chiklis as Captain Barnes was one of the best additions to the cast of Gotham.

He had great chemistry with Donal Logue and Ben McKenzie, and his character turned the GCPD into an organization you actually rooted for. But we all knew that couldn’t last. At the beginning of this week’s episode, Barnes has gone all in on the whole vigilante thing. He’s rounded up criminals, put ropes around their necks and stands each of them on a chair. In a long speech, he judges them all as guilty and kicks out the chairs, hanging them all.

Gordon is looking into the information that Dr. Simon gave him just before he died at the end of last week’s episode: That Barnes killed him. Barnes catches him looking through his files and invites him to come check out a lead. When they get there, Barnes shoots the suspect with a shotgun and turns it on, Gordon. He asks Gordon to join him in taking down criminals outside the law. Gordon refuses and Barnes tries to kill him.

Gordon is able to escape, but Barnes is right behind him. Barnes calls the GCPD and tells everyone that Gordon has gone crazy, that he’s the one that shot a suspect. Bullock doesn’t believe it and calls Gordon to get the real story. He then asks Lee to tell the department that Barnes was infected with Alice’s blood.

Barnes corners Jim in a hallway just as Bullock and the rest of the officers get there. Barnes realizes that Bullock and Lee lied to protect him. He asks Gordon to let him go. When he refuses, both men fire at each other. Barnes is hit, but he survives. Back at the station, Gordon thanks Lee for saving his life. He and Bullock take a moment to lament the loss of yet another captain. Finally, we see Barnes locked up in Arkham Asylum, screaming the word “guilty” over and over again.

We also check back in with Ivy, who’s fully embraced her new dendrophilic identity. She has charmed her way into an art dealer’s home and had him lead her up to his vault. She sprays on a perfume she made from a combination of plants. When the art dealer smells it, he becomes woozy. She has him enter the combination for his vault before knocking him out. She grabs a diamond necklace and runs towards the exit. She finds the art dealer has woken up. He grabs her by the throat, but she’s able to knee him in the crotch and escapes.

She goes to where Selina is staying and tells her who she is. Selina calls Bruce over, and they ask why she suddenly decided to come back. Ivy tells them about the guy she stole the necklace from and a group of masked men barge in and fire crossbows at them. They’re able to get away, and Bruce tells Ivy that she has to give the necklace back. When she refuses, he offers to buy it from her and give it back.

They go back to the art dealer’s house and find that he’s been murdered. He has a crossbow bolt sticking out of his eye. Bruce wonders what’s so important about the necklace that someone would kill for it. He finds a key inside, and the trio heads to Wayne Manor to figure out what to do next. The guys with the crossbows search Selina’s apartment and find a newspaper article connecting her to Bruce Wayne.

At the Penguin’s manor, Nygma is frantically checking his watch, waiting for a call from Isabella. The Penguin says he’s sure she’s just busy at her librarian conference, but we all know he arranged her death. Sure enough, Nygma gets a call from the GCPD. He’s called to the station to identify her body. The Penguin tells Nygma the police said she most likely fell asleep at the wheel. He comforts the grieving Nygma, who wraps him in a tight hug.

Nygma isn’t handling Isabella’s death very well. The Penguin walks in on him lying in bed, listening to sad music. Penguin tells Nygma that what he’s doing isn’t healthy, that he has to move on. Nygma decides to go to where Isabella died and said goodbye. When he does, he finds it suspicious that she apparently fell asleep only four blocks from her apartment. He asks a nearby homeless man if he’d seen anything. The man tells him he’s blind, but he heard a woman screaming before the crash.

Knowing now that Isabella wasn’t asleep, Nygma investigates her car and learns her breaks were cut. He reasons that someone had to have paid off the GCPD to leave that detail out of their report. He runs back to the Penguin, and for a moment, it looks like he’s going to accuse him of having Isabella killed. Instead, he reasons that Butch must have done it out of retaliation for Nygma exposing him as the leader of the Red Hoods. Penguin promises that they will make Butch pay.

The showdown between Gordon and Barnes wasn’t all it could have been. It certainly didn’t live up to the teaser at the end of last week’s episode. Despite that, there were certainly some tense moments between to two of them. We knew Barnes was going to turn on Gordon, but the anticipation made for a couple of great scenes. Most likely, though, Barnes isn’t going to be in Arkham for long. The real showdown between him and Gordon is coming.

The B and C stories were also great this week. Nygma and Penguin’s relationship remains interesting, and it’s always fun to watch The Riddler put a puzzle together. The Bruce-Selina-Ivy story was a big step up too. Bruce’s stories this season have felt like the writers didn’t quite know what to do with him. Now that they’ve given him something to do, his storyline was fun to follow and promises to get even better next week.